Staffing

Requisites

Pre-requisite: Students must be enrolled in the following Program: BNSG

Other requisites

Students must have access to the internet for course preparation materials.
Students must have completed all placement requirements prior to placement in health facilities. See Handbook.

Rationale

This course provides the introduction to nursing theory and practice through the philosophy of caring. Students are engaged in learning the importance of quality fundamental nursing care as it is recognised nationally and internationally as pivotal to better patient outcomes across all settings and age groups. The National Quality and Safety Health Care Standards identify ten areas of practice, all of which are directly linked to safe nursing practice. In this course, beginning nursing students are introduced to fundamental nursing care concepts and skills as a basis for scaffolded learning in simulated laboratory and theory courses throughout the remainder of the program.

Synopsis

In this course, students are introduced to beginning theory and clinical skills. The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia standards for practice for the registered nurse are used as a framework to guide students in relation to person-centred care, patient safety, cultural and contextual competence, and developing practice. The knowledge developed in this course is scaffolded to NUR1299, NUR1202 and applied in a variety of practice settings across the program. Through theory and simulated learning students learn the basic principles of: infection control; holistic nursing assessment including vital signs; basic wound care; safe nursing care to support activities of daily living; and manual handling across the lifespan.

This course contains a mandatory residential school for external students and mandatory on-campus laboratories for on-campus students.

Objectives

On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

Enact professional behaviours and communication skills in accordance with standards of practice.

Apply the basic principles of infection control and asepsis in a clinical simulation laboratory setting.

Demonstrate the knowledge and skills required to do comprehensive health assessments, including the collection and recording of data, for persons across the lifespan.

Develop an evidence-based approach to the formulation of knowledge on basic care as it relates to clinical practice.

Identify and demonstrate a knowledge of basic principles of manual handling and principles of biomechanics.

Identify and demonstrate a knowledge of person-centred care as they apply to basic nursing skills.

Topics

Description

Weighting(%)

1.

An introduction to establishing and promoting therapeutic relationships, and practicing patient-centred communication across diverse populations.

Reference materials

Reference materials are materials that, if accessed by students, may improve their knowledge and understanding of the material in the course and enrich their learning experience.

Student workload expectations

Activity

Hours

Assessments

48.00

Directed Study

73.00

Online Lectures

13.00

Online Tutorials

13.00

Residential Schools

18.00

Assessment details

Description

Marks out of

Wtg (%)

Due Date

Notes

Numeracy Test 1

10

10

08 Mar 2019

Assignment

80

39

01 Apr 2019

Lab/Res School Attend & Partic

1

1

07 Jun 2019

(see note 1)

Examination

100

50

End S1

(see note 2)

Notes

Lab Attendance, participation and completion of skills = Students are required to attend all skills laboratory sessions on-campus (on-campus students) or residential school (external students a minimum of 80% attendance at skills laboratory sessions is compulsory for students. The dates and location of the mandatory residential school are available from the Residential School Timetable (http://www.usq.edu.au/handbook/current/resschoolsched.html).

This will be a restricted exam. The total working time for the examination is 2 hours. The examination date will be available via UConnect when the official examination timetable has been released.

Important assessment information

Attendance requirements:
External students must attend the mandatory residential school and on-campus students must attend the mandatory on-campus laboratories. A minimum of 80% attendance at skills laboratory sessions is compulsory for all students. It is the students' responsibility to attend and participate appropriately in all activities scheduled for them, and to study all material provided to them or required to be accessed by them to maximise their chance of meeting the objectives of the course and to be informed of course-related activities and administration. Engagement in online discussion forums forms part of the directed study component of this course.

Requirements for students to complete each assessment item satisfactorily:
Students must attempt all assessment items. To satisfactorily complete the Lab Attendance, Participation and Skills assessment students must attend the mandatory laboratories and achieve 80% (a mark of 1). To satisfactorily complete the examination students must satisfy the secondary hurdle and achieve at least 40% of the marks available. To satisfactorily complete all other assessment students must attempt these assessment items and achieve at least 50% of the total weighted marks available for each item.

Requirements for student to be awarded a passing grade in the course:
To be assured of receiving a passing grade a student must obtain at least 50% of the total weighted marks available for the course (i.e. the Primary Hurdle), must have submitted each assessment item and must have satisfied the Secondary Hurdles (Proficiency), i.e. achieved 80% (mark of 1) for the Lab Attendance, Participation and Skills Assessment, and must have satisfied the Secondary Hurdle (Supervised), i.e. the end of semester examination by achieving at least 40% of the marks available for that assessment item.

Method used to combine assessment results to attain final grade:
The final grades for students will be assigned on the basis of the aggregate of the weighted marks obtained for each of the summative items for the course.

Examination information:
Candidates are allowed access only to specific materials during a Restricted Examination. The only materials that candidates may use in the restricted examination for this course are:

calculators which cannot hold textual information

Examination period when Deferred/Supplementary examinations will be held:
Any Deferred or Supplementary examinations for this course will be held during the next examination period.

University Student Policies:
Students should read the USQ policies: Definitions, Assessment and Student Academic Misconduct to avoid actions which might contravene University policies and practices. These policies can be found at http://policy.usq.edu.au.

Assessment notes

American Psychological Association (APA) is the referencing system required in this course. Students shouldmust use APA style in their assignments to format details of the information sources they have cited in their work. The APA style to be used is defined by the USQ Library's referencing guide. http://www.usq.edu.au/library/referencing¬referencing¬guide

Evaluation and benchmarking

In meeting the University’s aims to establish quality learning and teaching for all programs, this course monitors and ensures quality assurance and improvements in at least two ways. This course:
1. conforms to the USQ Policy on Evaluation of Teaching, Courses and Programs to ensure ongoing monitoring and systematic improvement.
2. forms part of the Bachelor of Nursing and is benchmarked against internal USQ accreditation/reaccreditation processes which include (i) stringent standards in the independent accreditation of its academic programs, (ii) close integration between business and academic planning, and (iii) regular and rigorous review.
3. forms part of the professional accreditation standards of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) through an external accreditation process.